Blood Moon [a Twilight Saga FanFiction]

Vein of Time

THAT FIRST NIGHT AFTER OUR SEVERE LAPSE IN CONTROL, was a quiet night. It was also the first time Bill talked to me also. He had greeted me when I arrived at the hospital and offered if I'd like a coffee. But he also was the one who came and got me in the middle of the night.
     "You must have made some impression at the Sanitarium," he stated. "They need you over there again. One of the patients is sick and their doctors cannot figure out why."
     The way he finished that statement made me sure he didn't fully believe the doctors of the Sanitarium had no idea what was going on, he thought it was all a ploy of sorts, but I left for the Sanitarium anyway.
     It was Doctor Williams who met me at the door and he had a foul look on his face, he didn't stop scowling at me as I approached.
     "Let me guess," I muttered as I approached him. "You didn't agree to this?"
     "That's true, but you did save us from the plague," he shrugged. "Second floor, the sixth door on the left corridor."
     That was Mary's room...
     With my kit, I walked to Mary's room, though when close enough, I walked a fraction slower, listening. Igor was with her.
     "How are you feeling?" Igor asked her.
     "Horrible," Mary Alice groaned.
     "Hang in there, trust the routine. Now, what's your name?" He asked.
     "My name is Mary Alice Brandon," she answered.
     "How old are you?"
     "I'm... I..." Her voice became hard as she struggled to remember. It amazed me really, that she couldn't remember. She groaned and sobbed.
     "This is okay, Miss Brandon," Igor said warmly. "Amnesia is a nasty side effect of your treatment. I won't let you forget who are you, Miss Brandon. That is a promise."
     "How old am I?" She asked.
     "You're nineteen years old."
     "My name is Mary Alice Brandon. I am nineteen-years-old."
     "Where were you born?"
     "... B..." Mary struggled. "Biloxi... in Mississa-pi?"
     "Mississippi," Igor corrected her. "Tell me about your family."
     "My mother was murdered," she said with such strong conviction. It hurt my dead heart to know that even if she was losing her memories of everything else, she had still been able to keep the fact that her mother had been brutally murdered. "My father... worked... he wants me dead. I have a little sister called... Sua-Su-Syl-Cynthia! Her name is Cynthia."
     "Atta, girl."
     By then I was leaning against her door frame. Mary looked up towards me as he opened the door to let me in.
     "How is she?" I asked quietly, keeping my words away from prying ears.
     "Sick," Igor answered. "We knew it was going to happen eventually, but it's much worse than the first time around."
     "Thank you. For the present," Mary muttered as I walked into her room.
     "Present? I haven't-"
     "Not this time, next time you come to see me," she corrected. "It's beautiful. Thank you."
     I hadn't even thought of drawing a picture for her, but though I could see why I would. Some memories could give her hope, give her strength during her sickness.
     "I know him," she mused, looking out into the distance her she face didn't go pale. "I've seen him in my future. Have you met him?"
     "Indirectly," I answered. "Now, why don't we find out what's the matter with you."
     Mary Alice smiled at me as I walked towards her with everything I needed to get a baseline on her general health. They had already taken her vital signs at the sanitarium, and I did trust Igor's medical judgement, he did after all, go through the same medical training as both myself and Carlisle, he just chose a different field of expertise. I just wanted to get an updated set for myself.
     While I was getting her blood pressure and oxygen levels, Igor kissed my throat before walking away. Mary chuckled and as I looked to her, she averted her eyes, her cheeks flushing slightly.
     "You two are cute," she muttered.
     "Are we?" I asked.
     "I know I'm going to find someone who loves me like that one day. At least, I think so."
     "Why do you say that?"
     "Don't be afraid, but I know you. Your name is not what you say it is. It's Elizabeth Farkas, isn't it?"
     I didn't react, but of course, I knew she'd know. How could she not? But then again... did that mean that at some point in her current future, she saw us tell her the truth?
     "It's not what you're thinking," Mary muttered. "I haven't seen you tell me anything, but I know you. I know your husband. I've seen it. All of it. And I keep seeing it. Every time I look at what's coming, looking for anything, I can see further than what I know I should be able to. And I know I can talk to you about it because when you get our scents, you get both pasts, don't you?"
     That got my reaction. What did she know? This was dangerous... even if we did hide it from the Volturi, we'd have to be careful about any visitors overhearing that she knew too much.
     She was still waiting for my answer, so I just nodded.
     "See, I see two futures," Mary stated and I stopped taking her vitals to sit beside her on her bed. "And I didn't understand for a very long time, until I met your husband..." she looked as if she was going to continue, but then stopped to think. Her eyes moving over to the door. "He didn't say anything to me, I haven't talked to him about this. I never even thought about talking to Igor about it-"
     "Ivan..." I corrected her. "Doctor Ivan Fraser."
     "I know, I'm sorry." She looked down to her hands, making knots in her sanitarium attire.
     "Why did you never talk to him?" I pushed.
     "Because he doesn't have a gift."
     "That doesn't mean that he wouldn't understand."
     "And what would he have done? Psychoanalyse me? Made you come talk to me like we are now? He doesn't understand time-"
     "He's got a better understanding of it than you make him out to have. Now for something that you may not understand, he has helped you with your gifts before. Without me."
     "I know," she sighed heavily. "Those two futures I was talking about? They're not the same, but they're parallel. I see two events and when I try and follow one of the them, it's different. The hospital I'm in is different, the staff don't exist. Your husband has red-eyes instead of gold. You two aren't even together in the other future I see. But it can never happen, so why I do see it? It's like I can see our universe, but also a parallel universe, and that's-"
     "You're seeing a future that's already played out," I said quickly and rushed to close the door. "Why I can see, two pasts, is because we've lived these lives before. A long time ago now, it was the year two-thousand-and-sixteen-"
     "It's nineteen-"
     "Let me finish. There was a fight, a big, horrible fight that killed all but-"
     "Seventeen vampires," she muttered, her face paled but not in a way that worried me. "I see that fight, when I look into the parallel future, I see it. I watch him die, twice. I watch them all die, twice."
     I knew the him she was talking about then, wasn't my Igor. The pain in her eyes was something I recognised.
     "Mary, that future. Do you see what Alfred did?"
     "Sent you back to 1658," she said, clearing her throat from her reawakened grief for a man she had yet to meet.
     "It's not really two pasts that I see, it's just easier to explain it that way, than trying to explain that my mind has been to the twenty-first century and back. I know the singular pasts of our minds, not our bodies, our minds. And I have to believe that's why you see the parallel future, you're seeing a future for you that in a sense, has already happened. The decisions have already been made, that vein of time, has already been set out. But it's different now, things are different. You said so yourself, the sanitarium and its staff, Ig... Ivan's and my relationship. Things are different. So yes, it is good to keep an eye on the future you've already lived, but don't dawdle on it. Don't linger your mind on that future, because that future is not going to happen again."
     She didn't respond, and she didn't really need to, so I just continued on with my work, listening to her chest and she cooperated, her stomach.
     I was listening to the sounds of her gastrointestinal system when she finally spoke again.
     "I know what the forth event is," she muttered, I pulled back the stethoscope and looked at her. "Or what it should be, if the right decisions are made."
     "What is it?"
     "I can't tell you. If I tell you, it won't happen."
     "And this final event, needs to happen?"
     "If I'm right about what it is, than yeah, it needs to happen."
     I tried to cheat, tried to take in her scent some more, try and get a grasp of what she knew... but there was nothing that made sense. I knew of her seeing two futures, of her father and sister and mother, step-mother... everything... Except those visions of the other timeline. I knew from her past that she'd had them, and I knew what she had seen in those visions, but everything that had gone through her mind about the events, about what she had pieced together from what she knew, I could get a grasp on.
     She chuckled and laid down on her bed.
     "I'm not feeling too good, just give me something to help me sleep and I'll see you tomorrow," she muttered.
     It wasn't a question, but it wasn't an order either. But after this conversation with Mary Alice Brandon, I knew I would definitely be coming back to talk some more.
     And with a picture of Jasper, because I knew that having Igor right there was always helpful when my mind reminded me of when I watched him die. I hoped I could spread some of that to Mary Alice.
     So I left Mary Alice, and returned to Igor.
     "You two were talking for a while," he chuckled when I handed him her charts. "I didn't quite catch what it was-"
     "Her gift," I muttered. "I've done all I can for now but I will come and see her again tomorrow with proper equipment. Give her this to help her sleep tonight."
     I wrote down a medication, kissed Igor on the cheek then left.
     I was at the end of the car-park when I heard Igor's familiar footsteps approaching me, I turned to face him as he ran towards me, at slightly too fast a pace.
     "What's the matter?" he asked me. "Did she see something?"
     "It's not what she's seen, it's what she knows," I stated and looked around the empty street, the night sky clear and filled with stars. "She knows the final event, Igor."
     "Did she say-?"
     "She says she can't. If she says, it won't happen, and it needs to."
     "How did she figure it out?"
     "She sees the other timeline, Igor." His brows shot up. "And she's smart, she guessed. She's not certain, but she has a hunch."
     "So what's the matter? We can trust her, you know that-"
     "I know. I am just afraid that her treatment is going to make her forget what she knows and she will become just as blind and as unknowing as the rest of us walking into this future."
     His brows pulled back together in a frown, but he lifted his hand to rest steadily on my cheek before stepping into me.
     "I am working hard to stop that from happening, you know that, Miss Elizabeth," he whispered. "I am helping her as much as I can, to retain her memories."
     "But will it be enough?"
     "We have to hope so. It would be nice to be walking into the new future with someone who isn't as blind as the rest of us, as you put it," he chuckled and kissed my forehead.
     I smiled and held his hand to my cheek.
     "I love you," I whispered.
     "Wherever this future takes us, that will never change," he responded and kissed me again.
     My eyes skimmed over to a very specific Sanitarium window. Mary Alice Brandon stood at her window, overlooking the car park, watching us, and she smiled.